The Sign of the Green Bottle
by vanillafluffy
Summary: An errand for Elizabeth turns into something more for Will Turner, who finds a piece of his own past in an unexpected place. Will-fic. Stand alone?


**Bah, Humbug--**I don't own any of it...except for the McRavens. I have no immediate plans to continue this, but I do have a number of ideas, so be patient, dear Readers!

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**The Sign of the Green Bottle**

Above the shop door hung a sign in the form of an elaborate green bottle. It was located at the far end of Port Royal from the smithy, and Will Turner had never before had reason to visit it. A bell on the door jingled sweetly as it closed behind him. On the shelves were a myriad of bottles and jars of all shapes and sizes filled with oils, powders and salves. The air was perfumed with a wonderful fragrance and Will inhaled it deeply.

During breakfast that morning at the Swann residence---he had been invited to discuss plans for the impending wedding---Elizabeth had chanced to mention that her maid had dropped and broken a bottle of Elizabeth's favourite scent. Will smiled. He'd certainly noticed the floral air that lent itself to her presence...it would be a shame if she were to be deprived of it.

"Ah, I thought I heard the bell," remarked the older woman who parted the curtains and emerged from the back room of the shop. "How may I help you, sir?"

A woman in such a trade might have been expected to show a certain amount of vanity, but she was neither primped nor powdered. Instead, her gold and silver hair was braided and piled into a casual wreath on her head and her cheeks were ruddy and bare of any artifice. She was of an age where a slight crinkling appeared at the corners of her bright blue eyes, but in the welcoming warmth of her smile, the young smith was oblivious to such details.

If she were a flower, Will thought as he explained his errand to the proprietor, it would be a wildflower, something hardy and vigorous that would find a way to flourish anywhere.

"Miss Swann's blend...." the woman repeated. "Augusta!" she called through the curtain. "Bring me the book, please."

A moment later, a girl emerged--definitely still a girl, a couple years younger than Elizabeth was his guess. She had the same vivid blue eyes as the perfumier, but her hair was a cascade of coppery ringlets drawn back from her face. She carried a large, leather-bound book, which she handed to the shopkeeper. The girl glanced shyly at Will, then her eyes went wide. "It's you!" she exclaimed. "You're Will Turner. You're the one! Mother, this is the man who saved--"

"Augusta McRaven!" her mother snapped. The velvety tones she'd addressed to Will were absent, and the girl bit back her words. "That is _not _the way we address our customers, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Augusta murmured dutifully. "But he--"

"Au-guss-ta." Mrs. McRaven drew the syllables out with a hiss. "Mind your manners! Perhaps you should go out to the garden and weed the marigold bed if you can't behave."

"Yes, Mother." Her blue eyes caught Will's for a moment, then she slipped back though the curtain.

The book apparently contained records of the scents compounded by the establishment, and Mrs. McRaven leafed through it. "Swann, Swann, ahh!---no, that's a shaving preparation for the , no---ah, yes, Elizabeth. Yes, this is a nice one, just the thing for a young lady."

"Ma'am," Will ventured. "What did your daughter mean? I'm the one what?"

The older woman raised her head from the book and looked at him directly. Her expression was less than pleased. "My daughter, against my explicit instructions, was present at the attempted hanging of that _wretched _pirate. She looks on you as quite the hero for saving a man from the gallows. I feel differently about the matter."

"He saved the life of the woman I love. I would not see him hang." The young smith spoke quietly. His adventures with Jack Sparrow, climaxed by the foiled hanging, had gained him a certain notoriety in Port Royal, but he'd seldom been rebuked so coolly.

"An admirable sentiment." She had taken several containers from various shelves and was deftly combining their contents with references to the book. "Which will probably not be shared by the crew of the next ship he pillages."

Jack had enough treasure to live like a lord for the rest of his life. Will knew better than to say that in the face of her blue-eyed vexation.

After an awkward silence that seemed to last for hours--though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, really--she stopped what she was doing, put down the flask and funnel she'd been using on the countertop, and met his gaze. "I don't know why I'm surprised," she said after a moment. "Your father would've done the same thing."

Will knew a pang of shock from her remark. "Sometimes, I think everyone knew my father except me," he said sadly. "How is it that you met him?" He glanced around the little shop, trying to imagine a young sailor buying a present for his wife in far-off England.

"He sailed with my husband." The terse note in her voice made him wary of further questions. "Many years ago."

"I'm sorry," said Will. "I hardly remember my father."

She gave a mirthless chuckle. "My own children have only a handful of memories of their father. The sea is a cruel mistress."

"What was he like?"

"Your father? You've the look of him, dark hair and dark eyes---but he was a bit thicker through the waist---Bootstrap liked his ale. He had no head for rum. Used to sing a song about 'three sheets to the wind' and beat the tempo on the table with a couple belaying pins...." There was a wry curve to her lips, and Will would've given anything for a view of the memories in the older woman's head.

"When we were first married, I traveled with my husband. While I was carrying our first child, we were at anchor in Portsmouth harbor, and Bootstrap took me ashore to his little house. Nancy was the kindest woman...."

Hearing his mother's name from this unknown woman made it all true. It was just barely possible that some of the Port Royal gossip had reached the shop, linking his name with that of his father's---but Nancy Turner was known to no one on this side of the Atlantic, of that he was sure.

"I had young John under their roof, and stayed there for three weeks until the cargo was loaded aboard and we were off again. Coal, as I recall, and a consignment of fine china. And you, you were a scrappy little thing with a wooden sword and a broomstick pony."

"How old was I?" Will had no memory of this golden-haired woman, who must've been a beauty in her youth. His mother practiced as a midwife and women with babies had been common visitors during his childhood.

"Not more than six or seven. You were growing in a couple of your front teeth at the time." She shook her head. "And here you are, ready to marry and start a family of your own...so many years, where did they all go?"

There was no answer to that. Mrs. McRaven resumed her decocting, and presently stoppered the vial, swirled its contents, and removed the cork to inhale the scent. "What do you think?" she asked him, holding the small tube out for him to sample.

"Are you sure that's it?" It was not, quite, the fragrance he associated with Elizabeth.

"Quite sure, Master Turner. Bear in mind, your nose is affected by other scents in this room, though you're not aware of them. Also, perfume will smell differently in the bottle than it does on skin, which warms it and brings out the natural oils of its ingredients." Far easier to listen to her lecture on perfume than it was to dwell on thoughts of the parents he'd hardly known. How extraordinary that a gift for Elizabeth would open such a window into his own past....

"Now then, did you want proper a flask for it? That, I'll throw in at no charge. Call it an engagement gift." There was a bit of a smile on her lips; perhaps she'd forgiven him his piratical connections. He selected a graceful bottle whose warm amber colour put him in mind of Elizabeth's eyes. "I can have Augusta fetch it up to their house when she returns, unless perhaps you'd prefer to present it to Miss Swann personally."

Will weighed duty and pleasure, and duty won. "I must be getting to the smithy," he said regretfully, drawing out his money pouch. "I tarried at breakfast with the Swanns, and my visit here has delayed me further. I'd be very grateful if it could be delivered to her."

"Certainly." He didn't know what the usual cost of such an item was, but Mrs. McRaven was generous in making change from the coins he offered her. "My congratulations, Master Turner. I'm glad to hear that you have a respectable trade and good prospects. Don't let yourself be swayed from that, or someday my daughter may be standing here telling tales of you to your son."

With a lump in his throat, Will left the perfumery, and walked rapidly away from the shop with the sign of the green bottle.


End file.
